During the summer of 2008 I set foot on Florentine ground for the very first time in my life. I had been in Italy before and had fallen madly in love with the country and the language, but arriving in Florence was absolutely next level. This was home. Back then I was still in university and didn’t give moving to Florence any serious thought at all. Over the next 10 years I wouldn’t do so, to be honest. It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that it actually became a real option.During a flight back from Florence I made a list of things I’d have to arrange to make it work and once back in Holland, I started telling people I was actually going to do it. Days later I had an apartment, a language school and my first contacts. And most importantly: a moving date!

And so it happened that I quit my job as a personal-assistant, sold my car and rented out my apartment. On the 4th of November 2017 I got on a plane with my cat. I landed with literally no other plan than learning the language and just let life happen to me as I had never done before. I gave myself 3 months to come up with a plan, a permanent living solution and making up my mind about whether I really, really wanted this or not. During the first months of 2018 I made up my mind: I was going to stay.